Hello Stranger

I shrugged. “I don’t know what to say, really I don’t. I hope I get to make him a load happier. I will try if he lets me, just not so sure he will.”

“He’d best bloody well had do,” she said.

She pointed to the last line on her bucket list, and I felt the flush burning me up.

Get a daughter-in-law.

“I know my time is running low,” she said, “so I’m sure I’ll never get to see him say his vows with a pretty little thing like you. But to know he’s happy when I say my goodbyes… that would be worth more than a hundred more years of life in me, I promise.”

I don’t know why the default social politeness kicked in, but it did. A fake smile bloomed, and I started speaking it, the usual waffle that people say to brush the serious stuff away.

“You might still have ages left yet! You’re so lively!”

She shook her head. “Oh, poppet. Thanks for trying the nice crap, but that’s bullshit and you know it. I’ve got weeks left at best.”

My words stuck useless in my throat, but I didn’t need them. She kept on talking.

“I’m not scared of dying,” she said. “Haven’t been for years. I had years of dark nights, crapping myself I wouldn’t make it through to see Logan grow up. But I did. I made it through. Death doesn’t scare me now.” She gave a middle finger to the sky. “It can get fucked.”

Her words brought a tear to my eye. I imagined her struggles, just from the bits of her past I’d heard. Cancer. Grief. Pain.

“I mean it,” she told me. “Plenty of things about life scare me, but death doesn’t do shit to me now.” She patted my hand. “Leaving Logan is what scares me. Leaving him in the darkness with no light at the end of the tunnel. With no one to love him.”

There was a shiver in my tummy, one of those weird tickles that hints at something unconscious.

Logan’s ocean was dark and I knew it. Whether I was a happy enough soul to light up the surface of his world, I didn’t have a clue, but his mum did. His mum believed I was happy enough to light up his whole universe, it was beaming out through her smile.

“I can see perfectly well the way he looks at you,” she told me. “If I was around a bit longer I’d damn well stand a chance of ticking off that last box on my wall. You’d make a great daughter-in-law too, sweetheart. I just know it.”

I was still tickly in my belly when Logan joined us upstairs, sitting himself down next to me.

He loosened his tie. “Emails sent, working week done,” he said, and leant back in his chair.

His mum chuckled. “Can’t say I ever remember you leaving the work week behind. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Yet somehow, this time, I knew she’d see it.

“You’d better get rested up,” he told her with a smirk. “Can’t have you snoozing on the back of the bike tomorrow and missing the bend.”

She was laughing as he changed over her oxygen mask for the night.

“I won’t be snoozing on the back of that thing, Logan. I’ll be more bloody awake than you are.”32LoganLife was shifting around me. Lost to all recognition.

I woke with that beautiful girl at my side, her freckled face resting on her arm, deep in slumber. For the first time in memory, I settled back down under the covers, pressing up tight to the creature who was stirring my heart. She snuggled up tight right back, loving even in unconsciousness, wrapping her limbs around me like a limpet as I held her.

I could’ve stayed there for an eternity, the world waking through the windows, but no. We had one hell of a day ahead of us.

Her eyes flickered as she woke, a smile on her face as she stretched.

“Was I snoring?”

I laughed. “No. You were quiet in your snoozing.”

She giggled back at me, resting her head against my chest. “Hopefully I wasn’t drooling either.”

“You were, but I mopped it up.”

Her eyes shot wide. “You didn’t? I wasn’t?”

I laughed at her shocked face. “No, Chloe, I’m just kidding.”

She slapped my chest and then she kissed me.

My body was still alive with hers, the night a blur of skin and flesh and closeness. I couldn’t get enough of her, and her want was equally as demanding as mine.

Her pussy had been a beautiful haven, her mouth a hungry seeker. Her hair a cascade against the pillow, rippling as I’d claimed her.

“Thank you for another brilliant night,” she said, her mind clearly caught up in the same memories.

“Once again, the thanks are reciprocated,” I told her, sliding my fingers up her spine.

I was ready to start over again, but she was up in a jolt, eyes wide awake as she propped herself up on her elbow.